Last Stand
by SabatiCurran
Summary: After returning home from the Twilight Cage, Team Sonic realizes their mistake in trusting Eggman...and learn that they have been missing for three years as far as their home dimension's timeline is aware of! And to top it all off, they find themselves at the mercy of their newest allies-A team of professional assassins. Rated M mostly for language, death, and violence.


Hello everybody! After years of trying to get my lazy arse to do this, here we are!  
Welcome, one and all, to Last Stand.  
Warning-If you are anti Ocs, this is the only chapter you may like.

Constructive Crit. Is welcomed and encouraged, but no Flames will be tolerated.  
…Especially if all its just "Sally Sux" or "Rouge should Die in a fire, Shadows MINE!" Or any similar bullshit.  
I own nothing in this chapter, Sonic the Hedgehog belongs to Sega.  
Enjoy!  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

_A funny thing happens when you take your first life. No mater what, you never quite return to the same person you once were.  
Either it cracks you into tiny pieces, and shatters your mind, making you in somewhat crippled, either emotionally, or, in some cases, physically.  
Or it becomes your life, the single greatest talent you will ever possess.  
…Some are just better off having others do the deed for them._

-  
The hum of the Tornado was the only noise Team Sonic had to listen too, as none of them were willing to talk just yet. Even after their victory against Ix, no one felt like celebrating, as there was now a sharp hostility between Sonic and Knuckles. Even after he failed to convert Ix back to good, and knew killing him was the only option, he was enraged with the hedgehog for fighting him. Though it was likely his anger was unleashed only because Sonic didn't kill Ix himself, but made Shade, the madman's daughter, do it. Even if Shade claimed she was fine, there was a deep sadness to her eyes. After the tenth time Cream asked if she was ok, the echidna had decided putting her helm back on was a good idea, but that only caused more concern to exit her fellow Echidna. Then, there was Sonic himself. He was currently the least popular mobians on board the ship, and had even considered staying in the Twilight Cage rather than take the long flight to their home dimension. He had managed to, in total, unintentionally make Tails feel as if he was only good for machinery, earn back Amy's affection, then accidently broke her heart using just one sentence, made Shade, as stated before, kill her own father, destroyed the very thing Knuckles had dreamt of having around him, and… well, Shadow had never liked him much to begin with, nor had Omega.  
This meant there were only three people whom he hadn't hurt on a personal level; Rouge, though she was too busy cuddling one-sidedly with Shadow to look his way, Big, whom was staring out the window, at the multicolored, aurora like lights that existed mid-dimension, and Cream, but Amy was busy hugging onto the girl, glaring his was as a way of saying 'Don't bother, we don't need her hating you too.'

Sonic was even starting to hate himself, feeling all the hostility. If it wouldn't endanger everyone else, he was seriously considering leaping out the ship and seeing if he could make it back to the Twilight Cage. But as much as the others hated him, he only wanted them to get home safely.  
Finally, he cleared his throat, and spoke his mind.  
"Look, I know all of you are mad at me, and for good reason, but will someone please say_ something_?"  
"Why, so you can just tell us you were right and we were wrong, as usual?" Knuckles grunts, not looking at the hedgehog.  
"Or make one of us love you again, and shatter our hearts again?" Amy hisses quietly, hugging Cream tighter. "After all, you'll just ditch us all for Sally when we get home anyway."  
"I will not. We are all returning to the Freedom Fighters. We belong there." Sonic retorts, calmly addressing Amy.  
"Not all of us are that stupid, Hedgehog." Shadow rolls his eyes, "I've always been with G.U.N after all."  
"_Enough_!" A snarl from Tails silences the arguing, as the kit turns his chair to look at all of them. "We all made mistakes in there! It's not fair to target Sonic for all of this! Shadow you almost killed all of us when the Voxai brainwashed you, Rouge risked all of our lives trying to gather Nocturnus technology, Amy's attempts to win Sonic over almost got her and Cream killed, Shade and I almost crashed the Tornado into Nocturne's force field, and Knuckles…you almost betrayed us all to Ix. Almost all of us are at fault for things that happened in the Cage, but all of us are pinning it on our 'Leader'."  
"The Kit is right." Omega adds in his monotone. "It is futile. And all of the furry creatures lived. This argument is invalid."

Silence took the Tornado again, but before the conversation could restart, Big spoke up.  
"The colors are gone…." He pouts, then perks back up "But that means were home, right?"  
The cat barely moves over in time to allow the other mobians to rush to the window, with the exception of Tail's who can see from his control panel.  
But their joy is quickly crushed, as the recognize

Mobotropolis…now cased in what looks like silver, reflective metal, each building topped with a large turret, each of them pointed at the Tornado, as the wormhole closes up behind them.  
The thought passes through the entire team at once, that, perhaps, trusting Eggman to behave while they left was a very bad idea.

~Chapter 1-Homcoming~  
"This is bad, this is _really_ bad!" Amy stutters, backing away from the window, shaking.  
"…I don't suppose you can just turn us around and back into the Twilight Cage?" Rouge asks, her voice hollow, as she turns to their captain. She notices the Fox shaking, and rubbing at his eyes, muttering to himself. "Tails?"  
"It's my fault. This is all my fault." He whispers, eyes glued to the city. "I…I trusted him!"  
"We all did, buddy. Don't…." Sonic starts, putting a hand on the Kit's shoulder, only to have it pushed away.  
"No…I made the call to leave Eggman in charge on this end…It is my fault…I Though he was my friend…" Tails whispers, then jumps, as a transmission starts to worm its way into the ship. The front window then blackens, with a familiar silver emblem flashing on the screen, before Eggman, and his control room, appear before the mobians.  
"Ohohohohoh! Welcome back, my friends! As you can see, I took the liberty of…redecorating the city while you were away." Eggman laughed, a large smirk rubbing the city's condition in the groups wounds.  
"How could you?! We…we trusted you!" Cream yells, startling the others. "You swore to Tails that you would behave!"  
"No, my dear, I told him I would help you all get home. I said absolutely nothing about leaving my plots behind. Besides, three years is a very long time to sit around doing nothing fun."  
"No…we couldn't have been there that long! I know how suspended animation works, and that's not how it felt in the Cage!" Shadow hisses, stepping forward.  
"…And you all forgot what I told you about time stopping in the Cage. How we couldn't feel it tick past us." Shade spoke somberly, as the rest of the time turned to look at her. "We Nocturnus thought we would return in our original time when we reached yours. I am, however, a little surprised. I thought we'd complete our tasks faster than we did."  
"Never one for listening, were you Sonic?" Eggman smirks, looking to the Hedgehog. "And now your family's thrown is mine; funny, how that worked out, isn't it, Prince Sonic?"  
"You'll never be able to touch the tree without the keys to the thrown!" Sonic snarled back, ignore in stunned looks from almost all of his companions.  
"That's enough talk for now. After all, I have a date with Queen Aleena, and her crown. Its time I grounded you naughty little mobians. If I were you, I'd prey to Chaos that I end you quickly." With that, the screen disappears, and shows the turrets charging. In a swift movement, Tails yanks at the controls, and turns, throwing the others to one side of the ship, and accelerates the Tornado to its top speed, dodging the fire.  
A lone missile clips the left wing, and sends them into a death spiral.  
"No! How didn't I see that one?" Tails cries, fighting to regain control.  
With a grunt, Sonic stands, and taps into the Chaos Emeralds power, a golden glow overtaking his body, as he helps Shadow up and extends the power to him. The hedgehogs disappear in an instant, and the Tornado slows, gradually coming to a stop.  
"Is everyone okay in there?" Sonic calls, chaos energy letting his voice echo into the vessel.  
"Yeah, no thanks to me…" Tails mutters bitterly.  
"All of us are fine, Sonic!" Knuckles calls, glancing at the others; Big had caught Amy and Cream, and had saved them from slamming hard into the wall, which could have killed the young rabbit, Rouge had caught herself at some point and was holding Omega by his head, in danger of dropping him, and was not gently hovering down, in hopes of getting him closer to the floor before dropping him, Tails was now upside down, his seatbelt holding him still, and leaving him to unbuckle and spin his tails, then flying over to help Rouge, and Knuckles himself had caught Shade, who was no staring up at him, her helmet retracted, showing her bright crimson blush.  
"Good! We're going to carry the Tornado over to Mystic Ruins now, so everyone hold on tight, this might be a little uncomfortable at first!" Sonic replies, as they start moving again. Omega reaches the floor, and grabs the two flyers carefully, before they pick up a lot of speed, almost making the robot lose his footing.  
"Hold on, Rouge…and Tails." Omega orders, stepping back to a wall to brace against.

The hedgehogs gently move the ship, the turbulence from their flight making matters a bit harder, giving the others a bumpy ride.  
"So…Prince Sonic, when exactly where you going to tell us that you're a royal?" Shadow asks, keeping his eyes forward. "It's sort of something we need to know. And G.U.N will be very interested in why you tried to hide it."  
"I hoped it wouldn't be important. Not until I found my mother anyway. Why else do you think I had Rouge trying to look up Queen Aleena, my mother."  
"I didn't know she was." Shadow looks at him oddly. "What did you offer her in exchange?"  
"Nothing, I just asked her to, and to keep it quiet, and it looks like she did if even you didn't know" Sonic shrugs.  
"She's a better person than you give her credit for, Sonic." Shadow smiles lightly, and realizes too late that Sonic noticed it.  
"Ah, so you do like her!" Sonic laughs, nudging his 'twin' "I was starting to wonder if it really was one-sided, even with how cute you two are together."  
"…If you tell her, I will end you." Shadow growls, "I'm trying to figure out how to tell her…but, if I make it official, if or when what happened on Arc repeats itself, she'll be in danger, like Maria."  
"You have us to help if that happens. You won't lose her too." Sonic gently puts a hand on Shadow's shoulder, though Shadow merely grunts in response.  
"I'll hold you to that. And if you ever tell anyone about this heart to heart…"  
"You'll 'end' me?"  
"…Yes. With fire."  
Sonic snickers, and notices the trees below them "Were here. Let's start lowering the Tornado."  
The pair descend slowly, and gently place the plane on the bottom on a canyon, though the loud cling of it on the rocky landing strip on the bottom of the ship startles them into thinking they landed too hard.  
"Were on land, guys! Come on out!" Sonic calls, dispelling the chaos energy off his body, Shadow doing the same.  
"That was fast." Rouge laughs, as Omega carries her and Tails out, the bat woman looking completely comfortable despite the hard metal pressing into her side, while Tails gave no sign of the same, wincing from the claws digging into one of his tails. He hops down, and walks over to Sonic, still looking upset, Knuckles and Shade exit next, shadowed by Big, Amy, and Cream.  
Sonic walked closer to the side of the canyon, and presses his hand to the stone, a flicker passing over his hand, triggering a door to slide open beside him.  
"_Sonic, Is that really you?"_ A timid voice asks, a lynx girl appearing in the panel.  
"Yeah, it's me, Nichole. I have the others with me too, and a new friend of ours."  
"_Very well, I will alert Miss Sally. Come on in." _The panel disappears, and the team slowly treks into the tunnels, heading up into Freedom Fighter HQ.

~Meanwhile, in a temple a dimension away. ~

"Blaze, you wanted to see us?" A loud Aussie accent called in, shattering the concentration of the lavender cat in question.  
"By Iblis, Marine, do you have to yell." Silver winces, shoving the Raccoon playfully. "I think I've gone deaf in my right ear."  
"Really? Want me to check?"  
"Ehem." Blaze coughs, drawing their attention to the feline.  
"Err, right, Sorry Blaze. What's up?" Silver smiles, walking over to her.  
"Sonic's world has finally become clear for me again. I want to find out why it went black for the last three years, but I'm unsure of how long this could take. That's why I want you two to come with me."  
"Are you sure about this? Sonic and I don't exactly have the best track record." Silver blinks, staying beside his lifelong crush, who simply nods.  
"I'm sure. Besides, I would hate to end up there for a long time without you there… again."  
"Oi, what about me? Is anyone going to ask if I want to go?" Marine calls, earning a slight roll of the eyes from Blaze.  
"Do you?"  
" 'Ell yeah, it's the perfect chance to show Tails how much better I've gotten with machines! And besides, I've already seen everything there is to see around here."  
"Then why make me ask?" Blaze rolls her eyes, grabbing the Sol Scepter, the Sol Emeralds teleporting to hover around her. "Now, this is going to disorient you at first, but please hold on to each other" Silver nods, and hugs the cat with one arm, and grabs Marine's arm with his other, locking to them using a bit of his telekinesis.  
Blaze starts hovering a little, as the Sol Emeralds swirl around her, their light growing brighter and brighter by the second, until they were just gone, leaving nothing of them behind….

~Freedom Fighter HQ…~

"It's not my fault it took us longer than we had planned to take care of it!" Sonic hisses.  
"Then who's is it, 'Fearless Leader?'" Sally Acorn yells back, raising her arms in annoyance. "And please tell me who the Hell thought trusting Eggman was a good Idea!"  
At that, Tails shrinks back into the corner, silently hoping no one would notice him anytime soon.  
"Look, Sal, we could stand here and argue all day, or we could actually do something about it; your choice."  
"Your just trying to get out of this argument, aren't you?" She signs, and turns her back to him "But you have a point. I'll go get the others, while you stay still, right here." With that, Sally starts walking deeper into the tunnels, though she could still be heard muttering obscenities at the Hedgehog.  
"Well, that went well, didn't it?" Knuckles chuckles, leaning against the wall.  
"It won't when Julie gets here and sees you and Shade looking at each other like that." Rouge rolls her eyes, perched on Omega's Claws once again, Shadow leaning on the Robot beside her.  
"Like what?" Knuckles growls, glaring at the bat.  
"In a sort of 'Hey, you Echidna! Me Echidna! Let's make Echidna babies and save our race!' way." Rouge mocks, forcing her voice lower in a clear imitation of Knuckles.  
"I…It's absolutely nothing like that!"  
"You sure about that, Cave-Man?"  
Knuckles glares at the bat, looking very ready to punch the bat through the wall, and the only thing stopping him is Shadow, who was currently giving him a rather scary glare.  
"Well Sonic…Still miss Sal?" Amy coughs, standing up from her position on the floor.  
"Amy…you know I didn't mean…"  
"No, you did. And now were back with your little harem. I hope that makes you happy…Prince."  
Before Sonic has a chance to respond, footsteps signal the other Freedom Fighters heading to the room, and before he has a chance to react, a punch throws the Blue Hedgehog across the room, a Magenta Hedgehog panting from her sprint, a look of rage in her eyes, which don't seem to notice anyone else in the room.  
"Sonic, how _dare _you worry us like that! I thought for sure you were dead!" She snarls, then walks over and helps him back up, hugging him.  
"Chaos, Sonia! Were you trying to kill me with that one?" He mutters, rubbing his cheek, picking a lost tooth off the ground.  
"Yes." She replies, her voice completely serious, though she frowns at the tooth, and mutters a quick "Sorry."  
"Leave some of him for me to yell at too, Sis." A green Hedgehog steps into the room, leaning against the door frame.  
"Glad to see you two, Manic." Sonic rolls his eyes, then seems to remember the others "Oh, um…Guys, meet my siblings."  
"Save the introductions for later, Sonic." Sally reappears, with a few other mobians behind her. Bunny and Antoine whisper softly between each other, glancing at the others, while Rotor files into the room, and instantly walks up to Tails, and begins chatting with him as though he had been there the whole time. Nichole and Sally enter together, and, much to Sonic's annoyance, Monkey Khan walks in behind Sally, and wraps his arm around her shoulders.  
"Well, this is everyone that's here at the moment…Mina and Ash just left for a concert, but they'll be back." Sally counts on her fingers, and nods, and then looks back to Sonic "Alright. If we're going to do something to stop Eggman, we need to start strategizing now."  
"Hold on. Were about to have more visitors." Amy speaks up, her hand hovering over her Tarot deck. "Sonic, please step back a bit."  
Sonic obeys, confused, just as a glow fills the room, flashing brightly, then fading, the Sol Emeralds landing at Blazes feet.  
"Oh! It seems were here already!" Blaze mutters, stunned by how fast the Sol Control worked compared to their normal speed, which, she could typically make better time running somewhere than using it.  
"Umm, are we interrupting something?" Silver asks, noticing the large group of mobians, each pair of eyes locked on the trio.

After several hours debating things like 'Should we trust the random mobians that just teleported into our home' and 'where'd Tails' houseplant that he grew from the seed of his girlfriend go?', among other, more important topics, the large group of mobians had finally broken into smaller groups, each chatting happily about one thing or another; Bunny, Tails, Rotor, and Marine were all discussing machines, and potential upgrades to Bunny's robotized arm and leg. Sally, Amy, and Mina, whom had shown up an hour into the debate, were talking about boyfriends, and helping Amy to find one, while Ash and Khan stood by, silent. Team Dark were bundled in one corner, trying to decide if they were going to help the others, or just leave, though, as Shadow made no move for the door, it was likely they would be staying. Knuckles and Shade were talking about the old echidnas, and about the third Echidna, Julie-su, whom was oddly missing at the moment, and Finally, Silver was trying to join in every conversation he could, finally being welcomed into Marine's discussion about how Bunny could benefit from adding a Cutlass to the top of her hand. That left Sonic alone, starting out a window into the canyon, trying to figure a final detail of their plan to end Eggman's reign. They knew now that the only way to permanently stop him was to kill him, but, especially looking over the room, he knew they had no real killers among them, minus Shade, but after Ix, Sonic would never be able to ask her to kill for him again…  
So what option did they have?  
"I don't think I've ever seen you stay in one place for so long." Blaze laughs, startling the Hedgehog out of his trance.  
"It's a trick I learned when I had to ride in the Tornado every other hour." He jokes, as the feline moves to sit beside him.  
"…I know what you're thinking about, and I have an idea for you."  
"Oh?" Sonic glances at her, arcing an eyebrow.  
"Nicole? Can I borrow you a moment?" She turns to a small panel, as the Lynx appears.  
"_Yes, Madam Blaze?_"  
"Would you please look up and contact the nearest and best rated team of Assassins in the area?"


End file.
